Serials Solutions® Summon® Service Continues Its Mission of Returning Researchers to the Library

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Technology innovation drives adoption with more than 400 libraries in 40 countries embracing the Summon Service

More than 30% of Association of Research Libraries’ (ARLs) members have adopted the Summon service, making it the most popular discovery service among these thought leaders.

Seattle, WA (PRWEB)January 20, 2012

Serials Solutions®, a ProQuest® business unit, commemorates the anniversary of introducing the Summon® service at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter meeting in 2009. In just three years, the service has grown its unified index, from 200 million items to more than 800 million and built a client base from 2 beta partners to a list that now tops 400 institutions worldwide. More than 30% of Association of Research Libraries’ (ARLs) members have adopted it, making it the most popular discovery service among these thought leaders. The Summon service delivers one search box, one set of results, one path to the library’s most relevant content – and it continues to deliver new features aimed at exceeding expectations.

The discovery-to-delivery process was transformed by the launch of the Summon Service and early adopters recognized the user experience was far superior to other solutions. “The rapid growth of content indexed by the Summon service has exceeded our expectations, affording us the unique opportunity to streamline the discovery-to-delivery process for our users. As a result, it allows us to maximize the return on our substantial investment in full-text content and authoritative databases,” said Anne Prestamo, education associate dean for collection technology services, Oklahoma State University, a beta program partner for the Summon service. Unlike other solutions, Summon supports full-text book searching of HathiTrust, ebrary and other book collections resulting in never before possible discovery of local print materials as well as e-books.

Agile product development methodology has enabled the company to be responsive to the marketplace and deliver new features on a frequent basis. “We recognize that meeting user expectations is very important to libraries,” said John Law, vice president of discovery solutions, Serials Solutions. “The recent introduction of Discipline Scoped Searching is a great example of delivering a technological advancement that responds to libraries needs and enhances the researcher experience.” Item-level discipline scoping provides more precision and levels of granularity, with greater accuracy, across a breadth of content and content types that cannot be replicated by other discovery tools.

“Serials Solutions has demonstrated remarkable commitment to ongoing development and maintaining a reliable schedule of compelling enhancements. Through these releases, we’ve seen amazing and continuing growth of content, as well as responsiveness to customer requests for new functionality,” added Prestamo.

The largest university library system in the United States recently adopted the Summon service based on its mission to simplify the user-driven information discovery and content delivery experience. The California State University (CSU) system of libraries, serves more than 440,000 students and faculty across 23 universities.

The decision to adopt Summon was made after a multi-year collaborative evaluation effort by CSU librarians and benefited from a unique real-world test-bed application that could focus attention on the breadth, depth, and relevancy of search results across a comprehensive index of scholarly content. A key factor in the selection was the Summon API that enables CSU libraries to quickly integrate Summon discovery services with library web sites and learning management systems in use today. “The API allows us to easily extend the Summon service to our ecosystem of academic technology services that integrate research and learning tools,” said Marvin Pollard, director of systemwide digital library services, California State University.

Serials Solutions will demonstrate its industry-leading technology solutions at the ALA Midwinter Conference in Dallas, Texas. The company is hosting a number of events to educate attendees about the latest developments for the Summon service and the new web-scale management service.

To register for the Serials Solutions Breakfast – The Journey Continues, click here. Attendees will learn how researchers at a leading university are benefiting from continued innovation, and what’s new and upcoming from Jane Burke, senior vice president, ProQuest.

To attend the conference session, “Real World Discovery Success and Game-Changing Innovation: The Power of Summon” click here. Learn how the Summon service is helping users solve real world research needs at a major academic library.

About Serials Solutions
Serials Solutions provides industry-leading technology solutions for libraries worldwide. The company makes the complexities of today’s libraries work by providing innovative, practical Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for discovery and management. Driven by a comprehensive knowledgebase and coupled with unparalleled client support services, these solutions uniquely merge unsurpassed understanding of libraries with expert knowledge of technology. Serials Solutions, a ProQuest® business, is a dedicated partner of libraries working to remain vital and relevant to their users and communities.